When Two Hands Clasp
by Laura of Maychoria
Summary: After Lance's first roommate kicks him out because of personality differences, Lance finds himself with a new roommate, a guy named Hunk. Hunk seems cool, and Lance really wants to get to know him, but he's afraid of being rejected again.


A/N: This is the story I wrote for Lancito Zine. It was a great pleasure to work on this project with a lot of wonderful people, for a very worthy cause. I'm immensely proud of the finished product, and you should definitely check out all of the works to come out of it.

I was privileged to get to work with an artist who made some beautiful art to accompany my story, paladinbluespace. Please go look up the art, and be sure to leave some fantastic feedback. It's gorgeous and perfect.

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"He's too loud."

Lance was silent, letting the words wash over him.

"He talks all the time. He won't shut up."

He kept his eyes on the table, unable to look up.

"He's always going on and on about his family, all these relatives I don't know and don't care about. There's always something to relate to them. I've tried ignoring him. I've tried being patient. I've tried being polite. I even tried telling him I was busy and didn't have time to listen to him. And he still didn't stop."

Lance reflected back on their time together. Yes, it was all true. He loved his family. He loved talking about them. He'd always figured Ryan had liked listening. Or maybe he hadn't paid attention to Ryan at all. He should have looked at him, should have listened better.

"And he uses my stuff without asking. I don't know how many times I've told him that the gray towel is mine, and the next time I turn around he's wearing it on his head. He takes my pens. He plays with my music player."

Lance's shoulders slumped and his head bowed further so he couldn't see Ryan, nor the teachers across the conference table from him. He didn't want to look at them. Didn't want them to look at him, either.

"We don't help each other study. He barely pays attention to his classes. I have no idea how he's even passing. When I'm trying to read, he's bouncing around the room, humming and clicking his fingers and popping his gum. I can't concentrate. Lately I've been hiding away in the library just to get away from him, but I'm sure I'd be doing better academically if I could study in my own room."

Lance blew a breath out through his nose. He just...had trouble sitting still. He truly did try. Ever since he was young, he'd try to concentrate and sit still when his teachers told him to pay attention. But it was always so hard. He would much rather be dancing around the room or talking to his classmates or looking out the window. He had learned a method for studying at home, with his big sister's help. He would read a paragraph or two in the textbook, then jitter and jump around for a while as he thought about the words and fit the concepts into his understanding of the subject. Then he would read a little more and do it again.

He'd thought he'd done a good job of adapting to Galaxy Garrison. Apparently not, since he'd been driving his roommate crazy this whole time and hadn't noticed. He hadn't learned a thing since first grade, even though he'd told his father that he was going to do his best to stop annoying his teachers and being disruptive to his fellow students.

"I don't know what to do anymore. I've tried, every way I know how, but now my grades are beginning to suffer. I can't take it, and I shouldn't have to. That's why I'm requesting a room reassignment."

For a moment, silence fell. It felt heavy and weighted, like being buried in sand. Then Mr. Laurence, one of the three teachers on the rooming board, spoke. "Anything else, Ryan?"

Ryan clicked his tongue, then shook his head. "I think that's enough."

Lance felt the weight of eyes on him and looked up. Mr. Laurence and the other teachers were looking at him now. "Do you have anything you wish to add, Lance?"

Lance shook his head, shoulders slumping. It was all true. He wasn't going to protest.

Mr. Laurence tilted his head. "No complaints about Ryan in return? Do you want a new roommate, too?"

Lance straightened up. The teachers were starting to look at him with pity. That wasn't what he wanted. He flashed a smile, turned up the wattage, and put his nose in the air. "Hey, if Ryan can't appreciate my sparkling personality, I'm sure there are plenty of other people at this school who will."

Mr. Laurence smiled, more relieved than amused, and the teachers leaned away from the table and looked at each other. There was a brief, muffled conference, which Lance did his best not to listen to. He didn't want to know what they were saying about him.

After a moment, the teachers turned back and faced the two students across the table. The head of the rooming board, Professor Okafor, looked directly at Ryan. "Given the circumstances, we believe it would be in the best interests for both of you if you were reassigned to different rooms. There's a transfer student coming in who may be more suitable for you. You can stay in the room you currently occupy, and he will join you later." She looked at Lance. "You'll need to pack up. We do have another student in your year currently without a roommate, since his roommate didn't return from break. I hope you'll do your best to get along with him."

Lance nodded. His tongue felt too thick for speech.

Ryan huffed in satisfaction and hustled out of the room, heels popping off the floor. It was clear by his bearing and expression that he felt entirely justified, entirely pleased. Lance moved more slowly, pushing himself off the table with both hands. He felt heavy and sluggish, like he'd pushed himself too hard in the weightroom and all of his muscles were weak and shaky.

He knew how it worked: This was more than just an academy. This was a training ground. This was where people who were going to go to space were groomed and cultivated for missions beyond the reach of civilization.

Teamwork was paramount, because a large amount of the training and evaluation was to determine who could get along on long missions in close spaces, who could work together, and who could not. The best exploration teams in the last two decades had come out of Galaxy Garrison, bonds of friendship and cooperation forged in the fire of intense classwork and multiple simulator runs. Lance had heard more than one story on the news about how this astro-explorer and that one had met in their first year at the Garrison, then eventually ended up going to space together.

Lance had been looking forward to making friendships like that, forming bonds like that. Of all the things he had expected to be difficult at Galaxy Garrison, that wasn't one of them. He'd always gotten along great with other people, quick to make friendships and skilled at progressing them. He could make his niece laugh with a few words, cheer up his mom with a gesture. Lance wasn't so great at academics, maybe, and piloting wasn't as easy as riding a bike, either, but he could do people.

Or so he had thought. Lance had liked Ryan, despite his prickliness and lack of enthusiasm at their first meeting. He thought he was cool, with his wire-rimmed glasses and his collection of Battlestar Galactica figures and his careful organization of his notebooks and pens. He had expected to go to space with Ryan someday, side by side as best friends and fellow astro-explorers.

It hadn't worked out. To put it mildly.

Suddenly, there were a lot of things that Lance wasn't sure of anymore.

X

Hunk was disappointed when his roommate, Amit, didn't return to Garrison after break. He got a message from him letting him know that there was something going on with his family and Amit hoped to come back next year. Hunk sent him his condolences, then looked around his half-empty dorm room with a sigh. He and Amit had gotten along well. Hunk was going to miss him.

He was alone in the room for a couple of weeks. He didn't much like it. Hunk knew that some students would have been thrilled to have a double room to themselves, but he had never been that way. It felt lonely. He missed being able to share his late night snacks and talk about home and assignments and whatever came to mind. After the first week, he sent an email to the rooming board letting them know that he'd be happy to get another roommate, just in case they weren't aware of his situation. After the second week, he considered sending another one, but he didn't want to annoy them.

Two and a half weeks in, Professor Okafor contacted him to let him know that he'd been assigned a new roommate. Hunk was thrilled. He spent that evening and time between classes the next day tidying up, making sure everything would be ready. He put back into his closet the clothes he'd been leaving on the empty bed and smoothed it over guiltily with his hand. He hoped he would get along with his new roommate as well as he'd got along with Amit.

That evening, Lance moved in. Hunk greeted him warmly, surprised when Lance responded with a subdued smile and a careful, business-like handshake. "Do you need help moving in?" Hunk asked, shifting eagerly from foot to foot. He eyed Lance's messy stack of boxes in the hall. Clothes and papers hung out of the edges, and Hunk was dying to look at them. What was his new roommate like? He couldn't wait to find out.  
Lance shook his head and gave him a strained smile. "It's fine. I don't need anything. You can go hang out at the library or whatever you want so you don't have to deal with it."

Hunk's eyebrows bent together. He hadn't expected this at all. "Nah, if you don't mind I'll just stay here and study, if you don't want help."  
Lance nodded.

Hunk set up at his desk and tried to study while Lance unpacked. He watched out of the corner of his eye, unable to restrain his curiosity, so he wasn't doing a great job of studying. Lance shoved his clothes into his dresser and closet without much care for them, and they looked normal for a teenage boy. His books were dogeared even only a few weeks into the semester, as if he fiddled with them a lot while he was using them. He didn't have much in the way of knick-knacks: a jar of seashells, a few postcards with tropical scenes. The last box Lance unpacked had more personal items, like a handmade afghan that he spread over the foot of his bed and a photo album that he stroked with his palm as he set it in a prominent spot on the shelf above his desk.

Hunk really, really wanted to look at that photo album. Maybe Lance had pictures of his family and friends in there, the place he came from. Briefly, Hunk entertained the idea of sneaking a peek when Lance left the room. But no, that would be awfully rude. Hunk ground his teeth together and stared down at the page in front of him, the words blurring together.

"Um, so..."

Hunk looked up at Lance's voice, brightening instantly. "Yeah, dude, anything you need?"

Lance smiled sheepishly and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I booked a study room in the library to get some work done tonight, so I'm just gonna head over there. See you later, okay?"

Hunk slumped in disappointment. "I was hoping we could hang out tonight and get to know each other."

"Yeah, I just... I have this essay I gotta write, and... I'm sorry. I want to be a good roommate to you, I swear. Just...maybe later? We'll hang out, of course, whenever you want."

Hunk tried to stop himself from frowning, but it came out anyway. "Sure, man. Whatever."

Lance nodded, then scooped some materials off his desk and hurried out the door, almost as if he couldn't wait to leave.

Hunk stared after him, blinking in confusion. This wasn't what he'd expected from his new roommate. Not that he'd really had expectations, per se. Professor Okafor had just said that she felt that Hunk and Lance would get along well, no personal details. But this was...weird. It was like he'd managed to offend Lance in less than two minutes of interaction, but Hunk couldn't figure out how he'd done that.

He tried to keep studying, but when it was clear that Lance wasn't going to come back for something he'd forgotten, Hunk couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and crossed the line to Lance's half of the room, though sweat popped up on his face and he felt like he was intruding on someone else's territory. He'd never gotten that feeling with Amit, and it rankled somewhere deep inside. He didn't like it.

He carefully avoided the photo album, knowing that it would be a breach of Lance's privacy to sneak a look, but at least he could look at the stuff Lance had put in plain sight, right? He bent over the desk to get a closer look at the jar of shells. Some of them were broken and chipped, some small and some large, so these were shells that Lance or someone he knew had picked up from a beach, not a jar of perfect, pristine shells purchased at a souvenir shop somewhere. Then Hunk studied the postcards pinned above the desk. Some were from Miami, but most of them were from Cuba: beautiful, colorful, sunny, and bright.

So Lance was probably from either Florida or Cuba, or he had close friends or relatives who were. Remembering Lance's medium brown skin and his bare hint of an accent, almost completely buried in standard American diction, Hunk could definitely see Lance as Cubano or at least with Cuban heritage. He smiled at the thought. Another island boy, that was awesome. Maybe that was why Okafor had thought they would get along. A little reductionist, but not wrong. There was a reason that "island time" was a thing. Samoa and Cuba had definite cultural similarities, even though they were half the world away from each other.

When Lance came back from the library, Hunk opened his mouth to ask him about Cuba... And then he shut his mouth again. Lance looked tired, done in. If he'd already offended the guy somehow, wouldn't he just make it worse? So he kept quiet.

Lance went to bed. A little while later, Hunk did too, having managed very little studying.

He kept waiting for Lance to mention the idea of hanging out again, getting to know each other as roommates. He didn't. In fact, over the next couple of weeks, it seemed like Hunk hardly saw Lance at all. He studied in the library almost every evening, and when he was in their room, he kept to himself, hunched over whatever he was working on with his headphones over his ears. They didn't have any classes together, and Hunk rarely saw him in the cafeteria. When they did speak, it was careful and rote, meaningless phrases passed between them only for the sake of politeness. It was like having a ghost for a roommate.

Hunk didn't like it. It was kind of stressing him out, actually, and a bunch of upcoming projects and exams weren't helping his stress levels, either. But he couldn't seem to break through the mutual shell of silence on his own. Every time he started to say something meaningful, his mind flashed through all the ways that it could go wrong, and he shut up instead.

Eventually, he started to resign himself to the fact that he wasn't going to be friends with his roommate. That happened sometimes, especially with roommates who weren't on the same career track. It was just a dorm room. It wasn't a home; they weren't family. It wasn't a tragedy if Hunk never got to know Lance, never got to be friends with him.

So why did it feel like it was?

X

Lance was trying really hard. He did most of his homework in the library study room, alone, so he could move around, snap his fingers and tap his feet and talk to himself the way he always used to, but it was tough. The environment felt sterile, bare. It was nothing like his mom's kitchen, full of the smell of spices and stewing meat, nor like his bedroom at home, crowded with things that reminded him of his family and the sea and the stars and all the reasons that he wanted to do well at his schooling. The dorm room with Ryan hadn't been perfect, either, but he'd made it work.

He couldn't do that to Hunk, though. Hunk seemed like a really nice guy, and he was on a tough career track, studying engineering. Lance had glanced over his textbooks once when Hunk wasn't in the room and almost got a migraine just from the titles. Hunk had a lot of studying to do, too. He didn't need to be distracted by a roommate who couldn't hold still for two freaking minutes at a time.

Lance refrained from talking around Hunk, knowing that once he got started, it would be hard to stop. But it was hard to be quiet, too, so he found himself avoiding Hunk and their shared room more and more so he wouldn't have to fight the temptation. Every time he got a message from home, a text from Mariposa, a video from his niece and nephew, he had to hold himself back from whirling around and showing it to Hunk instantly. Hunk wouldn't care. He didn't know them. Lance didn't want to annoy him.

Not just because Hunk was a busy guy and didn't deserve to be annoyed by Lance's family junk, but also... Lance was scared of being kicked out again. If he bothered to think about it rationally, he knew he was being unreasonable. The thing with Ryan had been a fluke, probably. Hunk wasn't like that. Probably.

But Lance couldn't shake the niggling fear in the middle of his chest that...maybe he was. Maybe he would find Lance's personality flaws too grating and start sighing when he opened his mouth, like Ryan used to. Maybe he would roll his eyes when Lance sang and danced. Maybe he would get fed up enough to ask the rooming board for a reassignment. Probably not, but maybe. Lance couldn't be sure, and that was enough to make him do everything he could to avoid that possibility. He didn't know how he would handle being rejected by two roommates in the same semester.

X

One night, Lance stopped by his room on his way to the library. "Hey, Hunk," he called before he opened the door, not wanting to startle him. "I'm just picking up some books."

There was a shuffle of noise from inside, not quite Hunk's usually hearty voice, but Lance took it as acknowledgement and stepped in. "It'll just be a minute, I'll be out of your hair in no time..." He moved straight to his desk, head down.

Hunk sucked in a noisy breath, and Lance sensed as much as saw movement in his peripheral vision. It looked...odd, not like Hunk's usual appearance, and he halted in midstep and turned toward it, eyes going wide. Hunk was sitting hunched up on the foot of his bed, facing the wall, hidden under a blanket that completely covered his head and shoulders. The blanket-Hunk was trembling, and the sound of his breath was loud and shaky. It looked like he was crying.

Lance's heart gave a sudden lurch. His resolve to leave Hunk alone as much as possible crumbled like sand before a breaker. He couldn't just leave, not while Hunk was like this. Something was going on, and maybe it would annoy Hunk to be bothered while he was having some sort of emotional episode, but Lance couldn't stay away, he just couldn't.

He steeled himself, then took a hesitant step closer to the bed. His voice went soft, quiet, no longer full of the false cheer he'd forced himself to display around his roommate. "Hunk? You okay?"

Hunk sniffled, a gasp stuttering out of his mouth. He was still for a moment, then shook his head under the blanket so violently that it rattled the bed.

"You're not okay?" Lance took another step closer.

Hunk spoke, wavering and watery. "No. I'm not okay, dude." His voice sounded breathless, like he was struggling for air.

Lance's heart gave a sympathetic throb. It sounded like the poor guy was having an anxiety attack. Did Hunk have these often? Lance should have noticed, should have asked so he would know... "Is there something I can do?"

Hunk sucked in a snuffling breath. "Uh-hum, mm, if you... Yes, if you..." The guy's voice was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out.

Lance stepped closer until his knees bumped the edge of the bed. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

A frantic nod of the covered head. "Yeah, ah, hearing a voice, it, s-sometimes it helps..." His hands crept out of the bottom of the blanket and gripped the edge in fists, big brown knuckles paling with the effort. "Being alone makes it w-worse..."

Lance nibbled on his bottom lip, hands wringing together in front of his chest. "You want me to talk to you?"

Relief flooded Hunk's voice. "Yes, please."

Lance squeezed his hands together so hard they hurt. "About...about what?"

"Anything." Desperation back in his voice. Hunk pulled in another noisy sob, body shuddering. "Just, s-something to take my mind off it. D-distract me. Please, dude."

Lance could no more deny that shaky plea than he could fly without a spaceship. "Is it okay if I sit next to you?" he asked, already shifting his body to rest his weight beside Hunk on the bed.

"Y-yeah, that's fine."

Slowly, tentatively, Lanced settled down on the bed behind Hunk, leaning against his broad back like a wall. The warmth of him, even through the blanket and the incessant trembling, was somehow comforting. Suddenly, it occurred to Lance that he couldn't remember the last time he'd touched someone, even casually. Wow, he'd really shut himself off from everyone since the Ryan incident, hadn't he?

Lance cleared his throat. He couldn't shake the feeling that Hunk was going to get annoyed with him talking and chattering, even though he'd specifically requested it. But he had to try.

"Okay, so... My name is Lance. I guess you know that, ha ha." Lance swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to relax. Why was this so hard?

His mind flew back over the sea, to his mother giving him one last hug before he stepped onto the plane that would take him away to the Garrison to chase his dreams to the stars. Just be yourself, mijo, she'd whispered in his ear. That's all you ever need to be.

He had promised that he would. He would be himself. And now, in the last few weeks, he'd been breaking that promise. He had tried to make himself into something he wasn't, something quiet and miserable and lonely, all in an attempt to be more likable, less annoying.

And he had no idea if he'd even been succeeding.

"My family is from Cuba..." Lance stared up at the ceiling, drab and bare, and saw white-tipped waves. "I grow up with the sea, it feels like, but it was the stars that called me. I don't know why... So much of my childhood feels like it was spent on or in the water. I went surfing, searched for shells, made sandcastles with my siblings... I swam the reefs without equipment and saw the fish. There was one particular spot I liked to go often where I felt like I almost knew the fish by name. It wasn't in a touristy area, and I probably wasn't the only person who ever dived that part of the reef, but it felt like it. My own piece of paradise.

"The daytime in Cuba is beautiful. Gorgeous. The blue sky, the yellow sun, the fluffy clouds, palm trees swaying in the breeze. But the night... Wow, the night. I don't know if I have words. So many nights I spent laying on my back in the sand with my arms pillowing my head, or on the hood of my uncle's car, leaning my head back to watch the sky. It sounds silly, but I didn't care about the names of the constellations or the names of the stars or the science of it, nothing like that. I mean, I know the North Star and the Southern Cross, of course. I know the sailing stars. I went out on my papá's boat a few times, and he showed me the important ones. But knowing those wasn't about knowing the stars, it was about knowing how to sail.

"So when it was just me, laying out under the sky and looking at the moon and stars... Nothing else seemed to matter. I would let my mind float away, and I felt like I was with the stars, too. I knew that people had gone up there before me. Plenty of them. We even have a base on the moon and regular trips back and forth. We've been out there, and while I was laying there looking up at the sky, I knew that there were people above me who might be looking down from the sky. Maybe they saw Cuba, a little green island in the Caribbean Sea.

"But I wasn't looking for people. I was looking at the stars. I wanted to be up there so, so bad. It was all I thought about, all I wanted. And eventually I decided that I was gonna. I was going to do everything I could so I could go to space and fly in the stars.

"I've never been a great student, but I wanted to be. And after I made that decision, I tried a lot harder. My big sister, Mariposa, used to help me study. She would look through my books with me and make flashcards and quiz me. The rest of my family loved me and supported me, too, but if there's anyone I owe for the fact that I'm here at Galaxy Garrison now, it's Mariposa. I love everyone in my family, my parents, my grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews. I could tell you stories, so many stories, about every single one of them. But Mariposa is something else."

Lance paused suddenly, voice sticking in his throat. Hunk hadn't said a word. He had no idea if he was listening. Was he boring him? Annoying him? Now that he paid attention, he was pretty sure that Hunk's body wasn't trembling anymore. Did that mean he should leave, he'd done his job?

While he hesitated, trying to figure out if this was working, Hunk moved. He pulled in a big breath, then shook his head like a dog. He pulled the blanket back so it draped around his shoulders and bared his face, though he still faced the wall, not looking at Lance. His hand fumbled backward, looking for something to hold onto, and Lance reached back in return as if on reflex. Hunk twined their fingers together and squeezed.

"Keep going," he said hoarsely. "Please."

So Lance relaxed against Hunk's back, holding his hand as tight as he dared, and he talked. He talked about Mariposa and Carlos and his mamá and papá and days on the beach and nights under the stars. He talked about studying for months, his family cheering him on, the simulator aptitude test at the Garrison adjunct facility in Florida, the entrance exam that took hours and felt like weeks. Then, at last, the acceptance letter, his joy and relief and his family's overwhelming pride.

As he spoke, all of the nervousness and fear faded away. Remembering his family's support and love and pride reminded him, powerfully, that Ryan's opinion of him wasn't that important. So one person who had only known Lance for a few weeks didn't like him. So what?

It didn't mean much, not really. Lance had taken it hard, too hard maybe. Too sensitive, too inexperienced, too naive. But wasn't that why he was at school? To learn how to deal with all kinds of situations, including people not liking him? He wasn't going to be able to go through his entire life with everyone liking him. Heck, he'd chosen a military career as his dream. Competition was totally a thing. Lance should be looking for rivals, people who could push him to work harder, not acting like a weakling who just wanted to get along with everyone he met.

It really would be nice if Hunk liked him, though. Lance's heart ached, and he gave Hunk's hand another squeeze as his voice faltered. Hunk squeezed back, his head leaning against Lance's. He seemed completely relaxed, now, and Lance finally fell silent.

They were quiet for a few moments, breathing. "Are you okay now?" Lance asked softly.

Hunk sniffled, then nodded. "Yeah." His voice still sounded rough, but no longer shaky and scared. "A lot better. Thank you."

Lance blew out a sigh. "That's good." He started to wiggle his fingers to disengage, sitting forward. Maybe he could still get in some study time before curfew.

But Hunk's grip on his hand tightened, pulling him back. Moving surprisingly quickly for such a big guy, Hunk turned around on the bed and pulled Lance with him so they ended up facing each other. Lance blinked in surprise, taking in Hunk's pained, earnest expression.

"Dude. Lance. Where are you going? You don't have to leave just 'cause I'm okay now."

"Um." Lance bit his lower lip. "I was gonna...go study?"

Hunk reached out for his other hand, too, snagged it, and squeezed both of Lance's hands in his. Hunk's fists were huge, warm, and very solid. Lance felt like he'd been captured by a mountain. "Why do you go to the library every time? You can just study here. I promise I won't bother you if you want to be left alone."

Lance blinked. "Dude, no," he said weakly. "I wasn't afraid you would bother me. I was afraid that I would bother you."

Hunk stared at him with wide brown eyes. "Why?"

Lance carefully pulled his hands free so he could sweep them through his hair, mussed up by all the leaning. "Well, I just told you, right? At least part of it. I have trouble studying, so I always move around a lot and make a lot of noise."

"So you're a kinesthetic learner?" Hunk spread his hands. "So what? I'm used to a lot of noise and movement, too. My family isn't as big as yours, but we're cheerful and loud and talkative. Why would you think that that would annoy me? You didn't even ask, you just assumed."

Lance went quiet, staring at his lap. All he could think about was that meeting with Ryan and the rooming board. All he remembered was those words washing over him. Annoying. Too loud. Talks too much. Won't shut up.

Hunk was quiet, too, trying to understand. Then he leaned forward until his forehead bumped against Lance's. His voice was soft, almost tender. "Is this about your last roommate?"

Lance closed his eyes and nodded, drawing in a shuddery breath.

"Professor Okafor didn't tell me why you needed a new roommate, just said that she thought we would get along. But this must be why, huh, your last roommate complained about you and asked for a reassignment?"

"Yeah." Lance opened his eyes and looked up to meet Hunk's compassionate gaze. He deserved to know the truth. "He said I was too loud. Too annoying. I talked too much about my family, people he didn't know and didn't care about. I was distracting him and his grades were suffering, so he couldn't put up with me anymore."

Hunk leaned back, anger crossing his expression. "Are you serious? He really said that about your family?"

Lance nodded, his heart in his throat. Of all the things Ryan had said during the meeting, that one had hurt the most.

"What a jerk," Hunk said. "So your learning styles didn't mesh, big whoop, that's an okay reason to ask for a new roommate, though it still also shows that he's rigid and inflexible and probably will have a hard time getting along with a team in close quarters, if he can't even figure out how to accommodate a roommate who just needs extra space for studying. But saying that about your family was completely uncalled for. What an absolute jerk."

"You really think so?" Lance asked, hardly daring to believe.

Hunk nodded swiftly. "I really do. I'm sorry that happened to you, man. What a horrible experience. But... I'm kinda glad he asked to be reassigned, even though he did it in a crappy way. Because I was getting lonely by myself, and you... You're a really good guy. I'm glad you're my roommate now."

Joy started to build up in Lance's heart, slowly and gradually, until it spilled out in the form of a big, sincere smile. "I'm glad, too."

Hunk chuckled, shaking his broad chest, and straightened up on the bed. The blanket fell down around his waist. "So you won't go to the library to study? You'll stay here instead? I promise, whatever you need, we'll work it out. You don't have to be scared anymore."

"I... Yeah." Lance laughed, a short, sharp burst of relief and delight. "I will. Thank you."

Hunk's stomach growled suddenly, and he groaned and folded his hands over his belly. "Oh, man. I was so busy panicking that I didn't even make it to the cafeteria for supper."

Lance wanted to ask what Hunk had been panicking about, but he figured they'd probably had enough personal revelations for one night. "You're hungry?"

Hunk nodded miserably. "I ate the last treats from my care package last night, too. I've got nothing."

"Well, we can't have that. You can't study on an empty stomach." Lance popped to his feet and held a hand out for Hunk. "C'mon, I know a back way into the kitchen."

Hunk's eyes widened, but he took Lance's hand with no hesitation and let him haul him to his feet. "You're talking about...sneaking around?"

Lance nodded easily. "Yeah, I've done it a couple times now. It's no big deal. I'll show you."

Hunk's hands clenched in front of his chest. "I'm not sure, man. What if we get in trouble?"

Lance laughed, confident and free. "We won't. Come on. Don't you trust me?"

Hunk looked into his face for a long moment, his gaze piercing, evaluating. Then he nodded. His shoulders relaxed and his hands fell down by his sides. "Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure why... But yeah. I trust you, dude. Lead on."

Lance grinned, then moved toward the doorway, waving for Hunk to follow him. Already his mind was full of the mental map he'd built up of the facility, the best way to get both him and his new friend to the cafeteria without running into any of the monitors who were likely to be moving in the halls right now. "Let's go."

And that was the beginning. Who knew where this new friendship would take them eventually: hopefully to the stars. But today, first and most importantly, the cafeteria. Lance was going to look out for his friend, and he had a feeling that Hunk was going to look out for him, too.

The End


End file.
